What to do when you feel unloved and insecure

1:27 pm
Wendy van Eyck
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It’s my birthday today. And I’ve been trying to find something that I could write that would adequately share some of my gratitude for life and for my family. But everything I try to write doesn’t seem as appropriate as this post I wrote a couple of years ago so I’ve decided to share it again instead:

And so you are no longer called outcasts and wanderers but citizens with God’s people, members of God’s holy family, and residents of His household. Ephesians 2:19 (VOICE)

The year I turned 13 my parents asked me what I wanted for a present.

I could have asked for anything. I wouldn’t necessarily have got it but I could have asked for anything.

All I wanted was a box filled with reasons why my family loved me.

Growing up my parents never gave me any real reason to doubt that they loved me but still I felt unloved and insecure.

On my birthday, I opened up a little white box with thousands of pieces of paper from my brothers and my parents with the words “I love you.”

That box did more than just remind me that I was loved, it reminded me that I belonged.

It told me that I was part of a family that embraced me.

That I was connected to a clan of people who would write “I love you” on a piece of paper and put it in a box with thousands of others just because I asked to be loved that way.

The other day I came across a quote that reminded me of that box:

Whenever you feel unloved, unimportant or insecure, remember to whom you belong.(tweet this)

In tiny letters underneath it referenced Ephesians 2:19. I pulled out my bible and flicked to the verse.

I read the words out loud – slowly – personalizing it:

And so I am no longer called an outcast and a wanderer but a citizen with God’s people, a member of God’s holy family, and a resident of His household.

I thought about that little white box, and those thousands of papers, and how the mixture of belonging had somehow loved me to wholeness.

Realizing I belonged helped me to feel less unloved.

I thought about how God wants us to know how much he loves us, and what better way to do that then to tell us we belong in every way possible.

In my free e-bookLife, Life and More LifeI share thoughts on how to make every moment count gleaned from my experiences of loving my husband through 18 sessions of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. If you would like a free copy please subscribe below to receive my devotionals every Monday and Thursday.

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I'm Wendy and I'm learning to love well, run well and read well. I write for anyone who has ever held a loved one’s hand through illness, or believed in God despite hard circumstances or ever left on a spontaneous 2-week holiday through a foreign land with just a backpack.

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I'm learning to love well, run well and read well. I’m married to Xylon - a man who talks non-stop about cycling - and makes me laugh. I write for anyone who has ever held a loved one’s hand through illness, or believed in God despite hard circumstances or ever left on a spontaneous 2-week holiday through a foreign land with just a backpack.